Monday, 20 November 2017

Happy Birthday Capa

Toady is the 129th anniversary of the birth of Jose Raul Capablanca. Generally considered one of the "Top 5" World Champions (along with Alekhine, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov) he started as a child prodigy, before become a full time player at the age of 20. He won the World Championship in 1921 and then lost it to Alekhine in 1927. He never had another chance to play for the title, and died at the relatively young age of 53.
Capablanca was considered a positional player, focusing on piece placement, and improving his position through 'petite combinations'. This enable him to outplay his contemporaries, although he met his match against Alexander Alekhine. His style influenced the next generation of chess players, especially Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov.
Even at the end of his career he was still able to target a weakness and build an entire game around it. In the game below (his final tournament game), he isolates Black's c pawn on move 9 and then builds up pressure on it. Black is forced to make positional concessions to defend it, and eventually ends up in a lost position.